My rudimentary knowledge of the Canyon led me to believe that the South Rim of the canyon and the Supai Reservation were physically close to each other, and that a road surely continued from Hermits Rest on just a few miles to the trail to Supai. Of course, this was monumentally wrong. Supai is about 100 river miles from the South Rim, and much farther by road. This became apparent when we arrived at the Grand Canyon and asked about the road to Supai. The rangers explained that the drive was long, not particularly suited to passenger vehicles, and hard to find. Four idiotic flatland college boys might never return. So, rather than travel half way to California to do our hike, we decided to plunge down into the abyss on the Bright Angel Trail, which left the Rim just down the street.

No permits were needed in those days, and we had no camping equipment, tents or sleeping bags, or food – – just our total ignorance about the wilderness of the West. Although I had some experience in backpacking, we were all Midwestern boys, living our lives where food, warmth, and shelter were never more than a few miles or minutes away.

Down we went anyway, hardly noticing the layer of snow that covered the upper reaches of the trail. It was a beautiful day and we were young and vacuous. We probably didn’t even realize that in winter, the days are short, and by the time we got down to Indian Gardens, the shadows were deepening and billowing clouds began to roll in.

As the storm approached, magnificent light began to play on the walls of canyon rising thousands of feet above us. I had never seen anything so beautiful, The sun worked as a giant spotlight, illuminating first this butte, then this mesa, then a stretch of fiery red rock. The clouds too, began to shout with color. They seemed to be living things, attacking the canyon as their colors mimicked those of the very rocks they swirled around. This show mesmerized all my friends, and it became something I would never forget. I had never seen light like this, and I had never seen light performing its magic in such a natural cathedral of beauty. I didn’t know it then, but this unexpected experience became one of the most salient of my life. For forty years, I have been in pursuit with a camera of just what I what I was feeling and seeing as a silly nineteen-year old.

The light just kept getting better as the day ended. I was ignorant of even this simple progression of the day. Darkness began to fall, and my thoughts turned from the majesty of what I had just seen to the cold night my friends and I were not prepared for. We quickly found a heated bathroom at Indian Gardens, and bedded down as best we could as darkness fell. Just a we dropped into exhausted sleep we were caught by a ranger, and kicked out into the cold. Our only choice was to hike out in the dark, and as we began a light rain fell. A few hours later, in a blinding blizzard, cursing the ranger, we slipped and slid up the cliffside. Somehow we made it safely to the top, where about eight inches of snow covered the rim. Our luck continued and we drove in the blizzard to Williams, found a motel, and woke up to almost two feet of snow.

We started home that day, but there was one more discovery for me on the way. Our homeward journey took us through Moab as the sun was setting there. I had been to Moab before, but this sunset was almost a repeat performance of the Grand Canyon show as the cliffs of Spanish Valley glowed like molten metal and the La Sals pierced the sky above pink clouds at their base. Here was a place to live with the same light as the Grand Canyon! I could see the few houses out around the golf course and dreamed of living in one, and watching this show every night.

Six years later, I moved to Spanish Valley from Iowa. Serious photography came shortly thereafter, as a way for my artistic temperament to express my love of the Colorado Plateau. I had almost forgotten this trip, but recently I dreamed about it, and though it stills seems like a dream in some ways, it was a real series of events that concretely started me on the path that I still am on.

One other important lesson I gained from this experience was that if I wanted to safely and correctly experience more of these magical events in the often stormy outdoors, I was going to have to learn about backpacking and camping. I immediately began a two year immersion into the backpacking techniques of Colin Fletcher and The Complete Walker.

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My shooting this fall has been outrageous fun. I worked myself into a couple of storms, one recently in Escalante, and another at Natural Bridges at the peak of the cottonwood leaf season. I’ve been doing much work with HDR photography. It’s all the rage with digital photographers, and a important tool. Books are being written about, and classes taught, but so far I’ve just been experimenting by myself. I did read an article early on about the HDR function in Photoshop CS3. The writer suggested shooting up to five different exposures to drop into the program with the idea of creating an image with a very wide range of light values (about ten stops) – –  all correctly exposed.

I tried this with some images with little success, and downloaded Photomatix software last spring to achieve the same result. Although Photomatix seemed to work better, it still didn’t seem to live up to the potential I was hoping for. I went back to using graduated neutral density filters while still shooting a series of HDR images in hopes I would be able to make the software work better in the future.

After a lot experimenting, I think I’ve had somewhat of a breakthrough. Instead of trying to combine a large number of exposures with each at a one stop exposure increment, I’ve had much better luck with two or three exposures, with several stops between each. For example, in a canyon scene with deep shadows and sunlit walls, I shoot one shot at the indicated exposure with my histogram right of center (correctly exposing the highlights, and then shoot an 2-4 shot underexposure. When I combine just those two images, which after all have a range of at least six stops, that seems to be all I need and the result is much more natural looking. If the image had darker shadows, I might do a third exposure with the histogram clipped on the right, but with plenty of shadow detail even in the darkest crannies. Photomatix seems to be much more able to create a good looking image this way. To gain and amazing 9 stops of HDR, I simply pull out my 4-stop GND and ad it to the mix. I’ve gotten images with a EV of 5 in the shadows and 14 in the sun correctly exposed completely throughout this way. As I continue to experiment with this, I’ll report the results.

Last night I had the good fortune to be in the front row of an Eagles concert. As a big fan of harmony singing, I have loved the band since the 70’s – – long before they became essentially the American Beatles. It was a stunning show, with the vocals ( I could hear the monitor on-stage mix – WOW ) true perfection. Many of the songs come from their now year-old album The Long Road out of Eden. Don Henley’s poetry as lyrics and his undiminished soulfully magnificent voice are lost on most of the crowd, I’m afraid, but the new songs are just as good as the old classics. I know the Big Leibowski hates them, but what does he know.

This is a modest attempt at a short  history of landscape photography in the Moab area, specifically focusing on photographers who have a large body of work  from Moab, Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park the La Sal Mountains and the spectacular BLM lands of the area.   If your work has mostly involved people, or adventure, or lifestyle – – sorry that’s not what this is about.

With the number of landscape photographers in Moab these days, one would think that such a photogenic place has always been a draw for still photographers.  Having been around the scene since the early 70’s and in doing research for my now out of print book Utah: Then and Now, that hasn’t always been the case.

For Utah:Then and Now I  went through thousands of old photographs of the state and found very few of the Moab area.  The first landscape photographs taken anywhere near Moab have to be those done on the second Powell expedition. These images were of Labyrinth, Stillwater, and Cataract Canyons, and I did not use them in my book since they had already been the source for a previous re-photography book.   William Henry Jackson seems to have made it only as close to Moab as the Green River area while traveling on the train,  and though some early images of Moab Valley  by unknown photographers exist which I used in the book,  images of Arches and Canyonlands predating the 1940’s were nowhere to be found.   

As a matter of fact, the first good images of what would become Canyonlands National Park seem to have been taken by Joseph Muench in the 1950’s. I use his image of Angel Arch in my book.  As for Arches,  Muench may have been among the first to photograph there in color. I have a copy of Life Magazine from the 1950’s with Delicate Arch on the cover in color,  and the article portrays the Arch and the National Monument almost as new discoveries. 

National Geographic articles also have featured some of the first photography of the area, going back to the first published images of Natural Bridges and a splashy color article of Canyonlands  with photos by Walter Meyers Edwards which helped put it on the national stage in the early 1960’s. 

Josef’s son David, did some of the best seminal work in the Arches and the newly formed Canyonlands and on the then seemingly unknown (to the outside world)  areas of the White Rim and Dead Horse Point in the early 1970’s.  I have spoken with him about being in Moab for one of the largest snowfalls in the area before or since–about three feet.  In his first UTAH coffee table book  this very unusual storm is figured prominently. Particularily noteable are the “moguls” shown at Fisher Towers. 

At nearly the same time David Hiser, a aspen-based climber and photographer, and Philip Hyde, a Californian produced some of the first great imagery of Canyon Country.  In Slickrock for example,  Hyde almost certainly was the first to publish images of Lavender Canyon, Chesler Park,  the Dolls House and locales in the La Sal Mountains.  Hiser  was probably the first along with David Muench to popularize the now famous dawn glow at Mesa Arch and the dawn view through the North Window to Turret Arch.

Up to this point, all these photographers were merely visitors to the area,  which brings us to the first photographers who shot the Moab landscape and actually lived in Moab.  Frank Mendonca,  holds the distinction as the first local photographer whose images of Moab gained some outside attention. Though he has not been truly active in landscape photography since those early days,  his image of lightning at Castle Rock and his work as sole photographer for a book about Arches are highlights of this early career.  

The late Fran Barnes,  shooting mostly in black and white,  was a prolific photographer and explorer of the Canyon Country. In dozens of books,  Barnes took the first images of many of the area’s amazing and lesser known wonders.

 I think the next photographer on the list is me,  and I began serious shooting with good equipment  in 1975,  and took up the 4×5 in 1977. My career up until a few years ago is detailed in volume 49 of the Moab Museum’s publication Canyon Legacy, so I won’t go into to it here.

 Here is a link to the Legacy archives: 

http://www.moabmuseum.org/pageview.aspx?id=17500

Steve Mulligan, whose work is lauded worldwide in both color and back and white moved to the area in the late 1970’s and has continued to produce distinctive imagery of the local area to the present day.  Steve’s accomplishments include a long running column  in  and Darkroom  Magazine,  the best photograph ever taken of Cataract Canyon,  most recently,  a portfolio of wonderful aerial photographs of Southern Utah, and  two instructional books on black and white photography and composition. His two published black and white portfolios, and Terra Incognito  are some of the finest work of its kind ever done.  Steve is now working on a portfolio of images of petroglyph solstice markers across the Colorado Plateau. 

Bruce Hucko’s  photographic work is just one part of his resume, but I remember seeing his 35mm work for the first time in the late seventies and being stunned by it .   At the time, though not yet living in Moab, he had some of the best and perhaps the only images of places like Fish and Owl Canyons, and other areas  I had still not explored fully.  Though Bruce bought a house in Moab, he lived for a number of years in Santa Fe. Before he left, we teamed up with Terry Tempest Williams on the long-running multi-media show  The Canyons Edge.  Upon returning to Moab,  Bruce has been very active in photography teaching classes for young and old, producing the wonderful Moab Photo Symposium each spring and authoring books on Dead Horse Point, among others.  

Dan Norris came to Moab  in the 1990’s and has built a solid body or work concentrating on local landscapes, rock art and ruins, and night photography. 

Starting in the 1980’s photographers from around Utah and around  the world began to discover the potential of Moab as a photography center.  Although the list is long,  some who have done great work in the area but live elsewhere include George H.H. Huey,  Scott Smith,  and John George. 

The photographer with the largest resume to move to Moab in recent years is Jeff Foott.  A famous wildllife and nature still and video photographer, Foott makes his home in Castle Valley for half the year.    In the last five years, Foott has concentrated much of his energies on landscape work. 

In the younger generation of photographers, Chris Conrad has done some exciting traditional and experimental work.   A recent issue of Sojourns Magazine features his amazing night photography.  

I know Moab is now full of some great young aspiring photographers,  but someone else will have to write their story.  Some may think that with so many photographers working in the area that all the photographs have been taken. Nothing could be further from the truth.  I’m sure we’ll see great new images by a new generation of photographers in coming years.

Most of my October was spent in France and Switzerland where the first exhibit of my images of World Heritage Sites was held.  The show was held  at the U.N in Geneva in a beautiful old art deco building built in the 1930’s for the League of Nations. and was a big success. It was quite a thrill for a farm boy from Hornick, Iowa and Moab, Utah to be there. After the show opened I spent several days shooting the amazing Alps around Mt. Blanc and Chamonix, and then headed over to the Loire Valley to shoot castles.  Again,  my car gps was an indispensable tool in finding my locations and my hotels.  Another observation is that in my last three trips to Europe,  not one person asked me to leave a place I was shooting, was suspicious or uncooperative,  or was less than welcoming.   I got bad vibes from no one, and was left alone to work without hassle everywhere I went.   

I don’t  know why I love castles, but I’ve shot about 100 or more now in many countries.  France has the best I’ve seen, hands down.  Another great thing about France is the usually beautiful light.  It may be because of the frequent cleansing storms from the ocean,  or the nuclear power,  but the air is often amazing clean and clarified.

I realize that this list of photographers does not include any women. This is only because there are none that I am aware of. If you know of some that fit this criteria that we all should know about please – – let me know.

Happy Halloween!

I’m often asked if I still like my job.  So many people think it would be great to to get paid to take photographs,  it has to be wonderful, right?  I spent some time with one of America’s best known and most successful nature photographers recently and I was amazed at how jaded he was about photography. Perhaps he had just done so much, so fast, that he had burned out. It could be that since we artistic types are prone to depression and to constantly questioning the worth of what we’re doing, or that he was just on in a down period.  

When I say most professional photographers are a little insecure, I must admit many I’ve met have actually have the insecurity of a brain surgeon, and egos to match.  I was recently at a gallery where one of the photographer’s old cameras was displayed.  Below the camera with a strangely worded message:  DO NOT TOUCH THE CAMERA OF ………., like it was a holy relic.  Don’t get me wrong,  there are some professional nature photographers who are wonderful, down to earth guys.They feel lucky, not entitled,  to have won life’s lottery when the jobs were handed out.  

I have often been surprised at the animosity I have received from photographers  (in most cases people who never met me), who feel my success, such as it is, is undeserved.  They attribute my luck  to “marketing,” I guess.  First,   I don’t see why one photographer’s  success, however large or small, diminishes other photographers, and second, many times the animosity is directly proportional to the photographer’s work ethic.The photographers who work the least seem to expect the most and maintain the most anger over entitlement.  A child could see that’s not the way this all works.  I  occasionally recieve  emails from jealous and disgruntled photographers that are reminiscent of  the taunting of gunfighters in Western tv shows.  The childish immaturity of these commnications is laughable.

All the weirdness doesn’t just come from unknown photographers. One  successful photographer photographer came to Moab, saw my photos on the post office wall, and immediately went postal about how wonderful  he was compared to me.  He hauranged the poor staff with tales of his greatness and I think scared them a little.   Another famous photgorapher  met a friend of mine at Kane Springs and threatened physical violence to me if he ever ran in to me in the field.   Again,  the grade school level of this sort of thing is mind boggling to me.   

Recently I read somewhere that a nature photographer was saying that anyone who suceeds at this business has really, really  worked  hard.  That’s my secret. It’s not talent, marketing, or technical savvy.  It’s not innate artistic inspiration.  The digital age has upped the ante–requiring more work than ever, and proving the adage that work saving technology always creates more work.  

Obviously, anyone who is involved in the arts and puts their work out for the public to see should expect some criticism and rejection.  Perhaps the fact that I’ve made a living at nature photography for several decades is due more to  having  a thick skin and a  willlingness to roll with the punches rather than any particular talent I have.  I also have little interest in my position in the hierarchy of   photography business except where it pertains to having enough money to continue doing what I’m doing.

I can also say that the encouragement and countless kind words I’ve received from so many strangers about my work over the years infinitely outweighs the the mean-spirited criticism I’ve suffered.

So, back to the original question, and my answer is yes, I love my job more than ever.  The last six months have been some of the most productive and happiest of my life.  I’ve expereinced so much beauty during this time, most of it in the American Southwest,   that I can’t imagine ever stopping or even slowing down my work.  Ironically, since the markets for my imagery have shrunken over the las ten years, fewer people will see this work than they did before, but I’m becoming convinced it really doesn’t matter.  I love what I’m doing and I pray that my work provides some small enjoyment for others.

The name of my new book, out this fall, is Success with Nature Photography, and that is what I wish for everyone who tries their hand at the genre. The more great nature photographs we have, the more people we have out photographing nature successfully, the better chance we have to save the natural world from its many enemies. 

My most recent shooting sprees include a trip to Panguitch Lake, which was recommended by my office manager Lucy.  The west end of lake glowed bright pink with blossoms of an aquatic plant–duckweed?  It was a really different shooting opportunity for Utah.  We also  had a ringside seat for the La Sal Mountain fire.  Resembling a volcanic eruption for a few minutes, the winds quickly dispersed the mushroom cloud, but it was an amazing sight for a few minutes. Its beauty belied its danger,  but  Fortunately no one was hurt and no buildings were damaged.  

In Northern Arizona,  while tempting fate on numerous soggy roads, I was able to jeep and hike to a beautiful pinnacle. The only published image of it I’ve ever seen was in Crampton’s Standing Up Country.  It just goes to show, that even with all the photography that has been done in the American West,  there are still lots of opportunities to find and photograph new subjects.   My friend from Las Vegas,  Alan,  tipped me off to the beautiful spot.  I used a gps to guide me to the location and also used my vehicle coordinates to guide me back after dark.  

Earlier last month I visited a great painted rock art  panel with the most beautiful painted sun I’ve seen.   I used Photomatix to handle the contrast problems in the photo, which shows the shadowed sun and a lit wall and sky beyond.  I’m conflicted  about Photomatix , which combines several images with different exposures, and “Fill Light” control in Lightroom.  Both are tools for High Dynamic Range photography, and take the place of GND filters by digitally mitigating images with a high range of exposure values.  I find that many times using the Fill Light produces a more natural looking image that what I’m getting with the plug-in.  Sometimes though,  using Fill Light does produces some strange fringing and chromatic aberration.  Each image is different, and I continue to experiment and read as much as I can about HDR techniques.  

To quickly change the subject, I just want to make everyone aware that Moab’s gift to the movie industry, Eric McLeod has done it again with his production work on the great comedy Tropic Thunder.  It’s such a thrill to view a wonderful flick and see his name in the credits–not down the list somehwhere with the Best Boy, but right at the top.  As a lifelong movie fan,  I have a small inkling of how tough Eric’s job must be,  and since he works with the biggest talents in the business (Robert Downey, Jr.,  Tom Cruise, and Ben Stiller this time) he must be one of the best in the  business.  Eric was a student of mine in high school, and now I just one of his many fans. 

Finally, a plug for my upcoming books.  My first instructional book Success with Landscape Photography will be out in November. It will be available through Amazon,  your local bookstore,   and the Tom Till Gallery. I don’t know how great my text is, but the images come from all over the world and I’m pretty proud of them.  The book itself is being published in the UK,  and they have done an excellent job.  Actually the book provides a lot of information, including a large section on both 4×5 and digital photography, and tips garnered from my 32-year career.  aren’t too   Early next year, a book I waited a lifetime to do will be available.   I was hired in 1982 to do a book on Canyonlands National Park which never came out (a story for another blog).  Since that time I’ve always wanted to do a book on my favorite piece of real estate in the world,  and through the  auspices of Jeff Nicholas and Sierra Press, I’ll at last have a chance.  I’ve shot a lot of new work for the book, and my hope is that the publisher will use lots of it.   My daughter Mikenna and I are also working on a new book for next year, which I will report on in the future.  

The added benefit of all this recreation disguised as a job  has also been a rekindling of a  keen sense of joy and peace when I’m outdoors.   This feeling has never left me to any great sense, and it has has always been my prime motivation beyond photography,  but right now I’m in period where my desire to be immersed in nature is particularly intense.  

Besides shooting in the Canyonlands,  I have been hunting down a number of rock art panels, and climbing around the Colorado River Rims.  I like to do these river shots when the river is high, as it was a few weeks ago. My hiking buddy and I found a road that I’ve missed on dozens of trips to a very scenic rim area upstream from Moab.  The GPS actually alerted us to its existence, and it took us to a rim location I had tried to reach unsuccessfully by hiking.   

To get the shot I wanted, I still had to hike about four miles,   and the gnats were as vociferous as as I’ve ever experienced. Since I arrived about two hours before the best light (a major error), I had to withstand two hours of the worst they had to offer. Did I mention this is a glamorous job? My buddy, as tough and experienced a canyoneer as exists, gave up and left for the car, but  I stayed behind to the bitter end. My reward–some good new images and  welts around my ankles that itched  so badly they kept me awake at night and are can still be seen over a month later.  

Photograhically,  some of the images required processing with both HDR technology and expanded depth of field programs.  Refer to other blogs for information about these, or send me an email of an explanation.  Because of these processes and other,  I’m finding that every hour I spend in the field is requiring three hours in digital post production work, the only real drawback I can see to digital photography.  

At about this same time, I began to experiment in my office with Canon’s new 6×19 printer.  I bought the model with 10 inks,  and also took Calumet Photographic’s  recommendation for a paper, their Brilliant Museum Silver Gloss White.  I had read that the Print module of Lightroom was really sophisticated, so I decided to put it to the test.  I installed the inks, loaded a sheet of paper and printed a image from my Mark III.  I DID NOT download any profiles, or calibrate my monitor.   I’ve now printed about 50 images and I think they all look great.  We have even put them for sale at the Moab Gallery. 

 Normally, the time lag between the moment I shoot an image that may end up in the gallery and the time it arrives on the walls can be six months or longer. With this printer  I can now deliver (admittedly small) prints the day after I shoot the image, and this has happened already in many cases.  We sell the prints signed for $50, and many will be one of a kind.  I’ve had great fun with this whole process.  

A few weeks ago, I hiked with a friend in the Escalante area.  I spent three days hiking up to eight miles a day in the 100 degree weather. Again,  as I approach my 59th birthday, this would not have been  possible without a digital camera.  Although I can remember many times shooting with the 4×5 with just the camera sticking out of the water,  we visited a spectacular waterfall that required I  do my shooting with just my head sticking out of the plunge pool.  Although I won’t  reveal its location, this falls gets my vote as Utah’s loveliest.  

Last week I returned to Australia. Each time I go,  I think it will be my last trip. This time, when my jet lost an engine to fire over the Pacific, and my rescheduled flight was cordoned off by a terrorist incident, I was ready to say never again, but then I find places like the Painted  Hills.

I  had read recently about a newly found scenic wonder in Outback Australia. Though not on any map,  any Goggle search will provide information about the place,  accessible only by air from Australia’s smallest town. My guide, Merv, set me up with a great pilot and I was flabbergasted by the unique landscape.  Over a series of low hill and small buttes, it appeared that flying saucers had disgorged giant buckets of paint on the ground. Reds, oranges, blues, violets, pinks, magentas, and especially yellows  turned the normal drab desert into a psychedelic dream or a giant Jackson Pollack canvas.    Only in Australia could a place like this be unknown until  two years ago!

Returning to Adelaide,  I became an even bigger fan of car gps.  I had noticed a photo in a brochure of a waterfall just outside the city in the beautiful Adelaide Hills.   With only a short time until sunset, the gps told me that I would arrive with an an hour and a half to hike and shoot the falls (swollen by several days of rain) and guided  me to the site without incident across Adelaide during rush hour.  When I finished shooting, it also sent me to a very good Thai restaurant.  

In September I will be going to Geneva to open a traveling show of my work depicting World Heritage Sites. After taking care of duties, there I plan to spend two weeks traveling around France,  and think the car gps will be a godsend for such a trip.  The show, featuring 30 prints, will be traveling worldwide after  the Geneva opening. 

Back in Australia, I was also lucky to finally arrange a tour to rock art sites with aboriginal leader  Bill Harney. Bill is the last keeper of some of Australia’s, and the world’s,  best rock art sites. The 76-year-old lead us through the bush on roads barely discernible to a half dozen  “friezes” as the Aussies call them over two days.  I guess he must have taken a shine to me because I got to go to some places that he rarely takes visitors, including the most beautiful rock art panel  I have ever seen called the “Little Lightnings.”  There is no way to describe this beautiful location, so I’ve included an image.  Above the rock art was an large arch,  uncatalougued I am sure, and the first of four unknown or little known arches I would photograph over the next few days.   I can’t divulge the location of this place,  because neither I or my anglo guide Mick could ever find it again without Bill.  I’m worried that when Bill is gone, heaven forbid, these places will be lost forever, along with his many stories about the adventures of the mischievous Lightning Spirits. 

My last day in the outback began with a helicopter flight over a half dozen magnificent waterfalls–each a Shangri-La with crystal-clear swimming pools.  After lunch we helicoptered to a place I called The Place That Time Forgot,   where  another huge waterfall in a stunning canyon which narrowed to a mile-long slot before opening to its swimming hole.  Many of these images were very contrasty, and will require a lot of work in Lightroom to pull down highlights and open up shadows.  

At the next stop, the helicopters landed,  and I was fortunate to visit  a series of spots that few have ever experienced. These places haven’t been in books,  they haven’t been photographed and National Geographic Adventure has never been there.  The helicopter pilots, one of which has herded cattle with a helicopter all over the nearby area was not even aware of their existence.  At the first stop,   the helicopter landed next to a huge arch framing another huge stream and the canyon walls.  The water continued down a perfect tiered waterfall to a huge swimming pool, with water so pure it was drinkable.  

At our final stop,  we were looking for the “Cathedral,” one of  the  outback’s most amazing secret wonders.  No one, not even two aborigines who accompanied us, knew the exact location of the site, and I was growing worried we wouldn’t find it, even using the helicopters to search.  Finally though, after several landings, we saw what had to be the place from the air,  and luckily with the winter daylight quickly fading,  we were correct.  One of the pilots made it to the huge cave arch first. His comment was “It’s full on in here!”

“Cathedral” was a apt description of the discovery we had made.  Over centuries Aborigines had spent time during the unrelenting rains of the wet season high and dry inside this arch of sandstone that measured perhaps 15 feet high,   60 feet wide, and 200 feet long.  Inside the arch,  piano leg-like buttresses held the ceiling in place,  a natural geologic wonder which I believe is unique.  Over the millennia,  indigenous painters had decorated the ceiling of the Cathedral with a stunning display of aboriginal rock art, an outdoor Sistine Chapel reflecting the lives of these people who lived perhaps 10,000 years before Christ.  I began shooting with my tripod on the ground to get as much of the ceiling as I could into the shot,  but I only had time to get enough images to give overall feel of the magnificence of this place.  How lucky I was to see and photograph this miracle.  

Back in Sydney, I hiked over the Harbor Bridge to shoot the city at night, about a six-mile walk.  I used a high ISO, and also the color temperature controls  and white balance controls in Lightroom  to get what I thought were natural colors. Today, I’m hopefully on my way home,  although this is not my year for flying, I guess. They’ve just announced the flight will be delayed.  

Twenty-six years ago I was hired to do a book on Canyonlands National Park. This was my first such assignment, and since I was barely 30 years old, I approached it with all the zeal I could muster, and it was a dream come true for me in the early stages of my career. In those day, the park was practically deserted, no one had ever done a book on Canyonlands before, and permits weren’t required for anything.

The subsequent history of the book was sad, the publisher paid me, but the book never appeared in print and they kept the hundreds of Canyonlands images I created.

Recently I was approached by another publisher with the opportuniity to try it again, and I was overjoyed at the chance to lavish attention on one of the world’s greatest expanses of wondrous real estate.

After seeing practically every wonder the world has to offer, I can say that Canyonlands National Park (fortunately not listed in the 1,000 Places to Visit Before You Die) is one of the treasure of treasures. I say this not to bring hordes of new visitors, (although their voices will be needed to help protect the park from forces amassing to destroy it) but because it’s so totally true.

For photographers, late spring is a mother lode of opportunity in the park: cactus blooms are everywhere, the sky fills with magnificent tropical clouds, and the light streams through with long warm rays of torrid crimson. This light is the kind that creates skeptics at my gallery, “That can’t be real.” Spend enough time out in the canyons and mesas and witness enough sunsets and sunrises and you’ll see and photograph light that no one will believe.

My first trip out was to the Needles with a Tag-Along Trip and a great guide named Bill. He helped me find an overhang in Devils Kitchen where I could shoot lightning and be sheltered from the storm. Digital photography is great for everything, but it shines with lightning. I was instantly able to tell, in the gathering darkness, if my camera settings were correct and if any of my shots were successful. What a thrill to immediately see the captured lightning on the screen with the Needles silhouetted against a dying sunglow.

On another day we visited Lavendar Canyon. How I have frittered away a lifetime with only a few trips to Lavendar is enough to bring tears to my eyes. I intend to do better. Is there a more beautiful canyon anywhere? I’m proud that I raised my voice strongly against the government’s plan for a high level nuclear waste facility nearby in the 80’s. Again, with digital equipment, I felt for the first time I captured clearly the amazing reflected light of Cleft Arch and the magnificent patinas of the desert varnish there.

Another week brought me to the White Rim and another great trip, this time with Western Spirit Cycling. Once again the guides, my fellow passengers and the food were wonderful. I spent most of my time at Monument Basin, trying to understand the maze of giant hoodoos and spires large and small. Again, the clouds came with light breaking in and out and spotlighting various rock sculptures–some so beautiful it seemed purposeful. As I turned the corner to the Green River side at sunset, I came upon an amazing rock garden. A low-flowering plant, of a species I’ve never seen, covered the low hills below Junction Butte. Some were pink, some red, some white, and some in between. In the dying sun these flowers patches glowed with an inner fire–burning bushes indeed.

On the way out, I walked a few steps to the rim to see the flooding Green River encircle Turk’s Head. I had first tried this shot 25 years ago with an Olympus and a 21mm lens, which was not wide enough. Armed now with a 17mm, it still was lacking enough width, so I’ll have to bring back my fisheye. A stitched panorama I tried provided an interesting twist, slightly distorting the broad circle.

What next? The Maze and the Rivers, of course. While I was above the deep canyon, my daughter Mikenna was guiding a trip through Cataract. Perhaps I can hitch a ride.

At that time I purchased an Imacon scanner–a fantastic machine that we have used everyday since. I was immediately impressed with the beauty of the scans we were getting from the Imacon, and this revelation made me much more open to the whole digital revolution.

In the meantime, we have scanned thousands of my 4×5’s, and the first big advantage was that many of my signature images were “worn out” from being published so many times. Though this was immensely sad to me, I considered it a cost of doing business. Being able to scan and clean up these nearly destroyed photographs was a great innovation, and a real sea change in the way we thought about our images. Even with all this digital work going on, I still kept my feet firmly planted in the past, continuing to drag a 4×5 all over America and the world, and having prints produced for my gallery that came from the original transparencies and not digital scans.

The scans came in handy to two major business areas, however. First, we were able to provide multiple copies of images to many stock agencies very easily, and we were also able to use our own scans to produce books we published ourselves.

Also, about five years ago, I noticed that my knees and feet were starting to feel the effects of carrying a 50 pound or larger backpack around for the last thirty years. Several of my colleagues started to succumb to serious knee problems, some requiring surgery, for the same reasons. I was also worried about hernia problems from constantly loading and unloading my heavy pack.

As smaller digital cameras began to approach the quality of medium format cameras, I began to think about a 35mm digital, especially for long hikes and overseas work. About ten months ago, I bought a Fuji 12 megapixel body to use with my Nikon lenses. Although I originally started out shooting 35mm with my 4×5, my clients always preferred the large format work, and I stopped using a 35mm about 25 years ago. Amazingly, I fell in love the digital camera almost immediately. Long hikes became fun again and not torture. I loved coming home from a trip and downloading the images on my computer. Using zooms to get exactly the right composition I wanted was wonderful after decades of being at the mercy of the single focal length 4×5 lenses. With the small Fuji sensor, I was now able to shoot long telephoto images–something that is impossible with a 4×5, and I began to score images that I though were some of the best of my career.

Fortuitously, my digital advisor Duncan Mackie recommended I give Adobe Lightroom a try to organize and edit my digital library. I found out that Lightroom is an amazing and wonderful tool. My first job with the digital camera and Lightroom was my niece’s wedding. I’ve only shot a few weddings in my life, and I don’t have the skills or the mindset for them, but I couldn’t turn down my brother and agreed to try.

The wedding was held outdoors on a bright, sunny, spring day. Add to that the black tuxedos and white dresses, and you have the makings of a photographic nightmare. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to shoot in RAW mode. After the wedding, I downloaded my first digital images into Lightroom and began to use it for the first time. Using the exposure slider and the fill light control, and keeping careful watch on my histograms, I was able in two hours, to produce a great set of 200 correctly exposed wedding images. You can imagine my relief and the revelation for me that digital photography was the real deal.

Since that time, though I still shoot 4×5, I have gone into digital photography whole hog. I purchased a 21 megapixel Canon and a an array of Canon lenses to compliment the Fuji. What an amazing tool! My knees have stopped hurting, and I love learning about the ins and outs of the whole digital process, and I have almost 700 keeper digital images since I began nine months ago.

My digital knowledge also increased as I used the camera constantly in the field and I had to write a new book on landscape photography that required a huge amount of research and field work in digital photography.

The images in this article were were made with a digital camera, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

But, more about that next time.

Last week I awoke very early, as I often do, to check the weather and see if any good morning shooting opportunities were in store. Fog had formed over the night, so since I’m working on a Dead Horse Point project, I quickly ran out there hoping the mesa top was above the weather. I was early enough to find that it was, but fog had not formed on the Colorado River side of the Canyonlands. In the west, however, I could see that there appeared to be some fog on the Green River side. As I drove, I was making fresh tracks in the two or three inches of snow on the road past the Neck. I was further surprised to see no one in the parking lot at Mesa Arch–an amazing event in itself.

At Green River Overlook, I faced a stiff cold wind, but below me in the predawn light I could see the sea of clouds. There’s a Grand Canyon folk tale about somebody walking across the canyon on the fog, and I felt as if I could step right off the point onto the fog and start tramping toward the Orange Cliffs.

It’s impossible to see Candlestick Butte on the White Rim from the main viewpoint, but since I knew I could see it by walking a few hundred yards, I quickly loaded up the digital camera (the wind was much too stiff for the 4×5) and walked over. I was in luck, Candlestick was standing tall and free of the fog, which by now was being whipped into frothy waves by the wind. I knew I had to work quickly or this amazing weather event would be gone. I did a number of compositions and even shot some pieces of a panoramic. The long telephoto cropping available with the small Nikon sensor allowed me to zero in on distant Ekker and Elaterite Buttes across the Maze. It was a great morning, and I think I got some of the best ISky images I’ve captured in awhile.

This weekend, though I had planned to watch the Superbowl with friends, a routine check of the coming storm forecast caught my eye. Escalante had a Heavy Snow Warning, and the Page and Farmington forecasts also posted Winter Storm Warnings and a promise of significant snow for each place.

First, a little history. Over the years I have made countless trips in search of snow scenes across the Southwest, the Nation, and even in places like Australia. My general plan is to rely on a forecast, leave before the storm begins, wait for the storm to hit a lull or end, and begin shooting. I then drive home when the roads have been plowed. I’m especially fond of fresh snow as a subject, and in the Southwest, fresh snow sometimes lasts literally moments. A number of years ago, for example, I followed a storm to Canyon De Chelly, risked my life hiking the snowy trail down to White House Ruin, and shot as quickly as I could as the snow began to melt as soon as it stopped falling. By the time I set up my 4×5 and had shot a few dozen images it was gone.

Some Southwest locations offer more of a chance for success than others. Snow is much more likely to come in abundance at Bryce, Mesa Verde, the South Rim, and Black Canyon than at the lower elevations. Since I’ve had so much good luck at the “easy” places, my focus has shifted to the trying to get snow shots at the lower elevation locations, so this is why I was particularly excited about snow in Page.

My luck last year with successful snow imagery illustrates how fickle and spotty these storms can be. On the strength of forecasts, I made trips to both Escalante and Farmington. In Escalante, perhaps one inch fell and quickly melted, so I got nothing. At Farmington, no snow fell at all even though six inches was forecast. My dreams of a snowy Shiprock rising above the lingering fog were not to be. On the way home, after passing through a snow-free Cortez, I ran into a foot or more at the turn off to Hovenweep. I needed my FJ Cruiser’s locking rear differential to make the risky trip off the highway, but as I got near Hovenweep the snow gradually disappeared. I turned around and headed toward some ruins I had visited in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument which were back in the heavy snow zone. Again, risking a broken leg or worse, I hiked in the deep snow down to a tower ruin and got my only good winter snow image of the season.

My luck on the trip this weekend, was better, but it still drove home to me that these winter storms are as unpredictable in their yields as the summer thunderstorms. Page, where I waited for two nights, got only a trace, but as I headed out Monday before dawn, I quickly ran into heavy snow on the ground in the Kanab area and clear conditions. Inventing my shooting strategies up on the fly, as usual, I decided to make a quick run to Zion. Kanab had over a foot of snow, and as I headed into East Zion, the depth was approaching more like two. I could also see the majestic snow-smothered East Zion cathedrals rising above fog! I’ve learned a long time ago that once you get the idea for a shot and get excited about what might be, that the universe will often deny your hunger. As I drove into Zion, certain I’d made the right choice on where to go, I was stopped by a wall of snow. An avalanche had come down Checkerboard Mesa, burying the highway. Though I was glad I was not under that pile of snow, I could see the sunrise on my objectives, unreachable.

In the end, my best shot of the trip was probably one I got along the Boulder Mountain highway on my way home: an abstract of aspen shadows on the undulating snow.

As a confirmed desert rat, I have made many trips to the Middle East and have found the desert there to be almost as beautiful as ours. Middle Easterners also have a great interest in photography and in our deserts here in North America. I was amazed that most people in the photography community there knew my work and the work of American landscape photographers. They also had some very good camera gear.

In critiquing the work of my students there I saw the same sorts of things I see with aspiring photographers here. Here’s a list of compositional mistakes I always see that you might try to avoid:

Be careful with white areas or subjects, since the eye is invariably drawn to those first. This is especially problematic when your main subject is not white.

Watch the corners of your image. Unwanted twigs or other flotsam and jetsam want to creep into those areas to ruin your image.

Get closer to your subject, either with a longer lens, or actually moving in closer.

Watch your horizon line. Less experienced photographers tend to put the horizon right across the middle of the image–a psychologically disturbing practice.If you’re including foreground, spend some time to find a good one.

If you’re including sky, don’t waste 1/3 of the image space with bald blue sky. Also, avoid large areas of deep black.

Try to find some way to simulate three-dimensions in your big vistas. Two ways to do this are to use layers of subject matter and to use shadows. Shadowed areas translate best with the sun at right angles to your shot.

Probably the best shot I got on the trip was a panoramic image I made near my hotel. From my seventh floor room I could see a parking lot flooded from recent very rare rains. I determined that at sunrise, Doha’s skyline ( reminiscent of Blade Runner) would make a great reflection scene. Unfortunately my tripod, lost with my luggage, hadn’t arrived yet. Fortunately, I had my new Nikon 18-200 zoom lens with second generation Vibration Reduction technology. The lens was recently tested and shown to have four stops of shake control, even in the hands of a geezer photographer. I had previsualized the image well, and was wide awake from jet lag at the next dawn.

I did several regular images and then tried a hand held panoramic shot with three images. The new Photoshop CS3 has an amazing Photomerge feature that have been using to make panoramic images. Photomerge is so good that I’ve probably given up my six pound Fuji 6×17 film panoramic camera forever. It’s easy to use. After shooting your segments in the field, export them into Photoshop. Go to file and choose the Automate command and Photomerge. In Photomerge choose the Browse command and select your images, and sit back and watch the thing do its magic. You can see my unedited pano here.Qatar also has an arch. Just one.

Yesterday (Monday) started out gray and dour, and the satellite image showed a large snow echo headed for us, but it fizzled. By early afternoon I could see that the western sky was clearing (always keep a eye to the west for clues to upcoming weather), and I head toward Dead Horse. I have a lot of sunrise snow imagery up there, but not not much sunset work, and I was rewarded with a phenomenal sunset. The clearing storm had left behind spectacularly clear air, and the light was stunning. As sunset approached my foreground snow took on that wonderful combination of very warm and cool light that I love.

The La Sals were as heavily covered as I’d ever seen them, and they were glowing orange above the red cliffs below. I thought that they might be too bright and would need a graduated nd, but my histogram on my digital camera kept telling me all was well, and the results were perfect. I nearly had the whole beautiful world to myself, but one other photographer was also there. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the location, and was expecting to shoot the “classic” Dead Horse Gooseneck scene. He took one look and decided the heavily back lit scene wouldn’t work. I seemed to me, though, that if I could wait until sunset, that all that snow in the shade would go very blue, so I tried the classic scene after all the eastern light was gone and it worked well. I also got an amazing shot of snow melt water on the western rocks turning bright gold in the sunset light. When the magic minute comes along, the location is always filled with scenes that you could never have predicted or previsualized–all that’s needed is an open mind and a quick response.

I would give anything to be up in the peaks and photograph some of the ghost trees I can see through binoculars on the La Sal ridges. They are spectacular encased in days worth of ice and snow fall , but I have never been an cross country skier, so for now they remain a distant dream.

When I think of great snow-photography events in the past, I’m reminded of a amazing snowfall that occurred in the mid-eighties. It came in March and dumped 17 inches on the Needles. Since no permit was needed then, I headed out on the White Rim to camp and photograph. The snow began to melt almost immediately and every drainage on the Rim was flowing across the flats and falling off in countless waterfalls towards the river. I spent the night at Monument Basin and counted about 20 waterfalls going in the Basin at sunset. Waterfalls were even coming down in small ribbons from the top of Island in the Sky. I went to sleep with the roar of the cascades which continued all night long. The experience was much better than the images I got, which is sometimes the case.

All this snow makes one think of spring wildflowers and rising rivers–just around the corner.

More about the trip later, but this morning I wanted to mention my sadness at the death of Dan Fogelberg, a consummate musician and songwriter. Many of Dan’s songs have Western themes and I believe he lived at least part time in Pagosa Springs. His live album is called “Greetings from the West. “ He was also known for his stunningly melodic instrumental pieces. A recent one was called “County Clare,” about Ireland’s most beautiful county. My favorite song of his is “Netherlands,” whose theme is the inspiration of wild places. I think I can quote a few words without copyright violation: “Out in the Netherlands I heard the sound of the beating of heavenly wings.” Most of his work is available on Itunes. “High Country Snows,” is a particularly good album for this time of year.

When you get to be my age and artists of all stripes you’ve admired begin to pass away on a regular basis, whether they be Don Knotts or Norman Mailer, it definitely hurts, both at the loss of the person and the reminder of your own mortality.

Moab river runners might be interested in my recent trip which centered around photographing two beautiful rivers in Fiji. OARS river company’s affiliate there is called Rivers Fiji, and they run two fantastic rivers on the main island of Viti Levu. Since the rivers they run pass through the lands of local villages, Rivers Fiji has struck a deal with the village chiefs to train and employ their young men as guides in return for use of the rivers. Private use of the rivers, or use by other companies is not allowed. The rivers are also part of a government controlled nature sanctuary (as far as I could tell the only ones in Fiji), and protected from logging, which is denuding much of the island’s interior.

Rafts are used on the Upper Navua River, a one day trip that passes through a narrow canyon with hundreds of waterfalls streaming down the walls. During the wet season, which is at its peak right now, the falls are especially spectacular, including one called the “Free Massage Falls. ” Lush greenery adorns the walls of the canyons, creating a true paradise, and the rapids are fun and vigorous, gaining difficulty as the waters rise from monsoon rains.

We also went down the Luava River, which included a drive through a Yosemite-like valley (complete with a 1,000 foot waterfall), a stop to drink Kava with the local chief, and a wonderful inflatable kayak adventure. Besides all this great natural beauty, the Fijians were are as friendly and kind as any people I’ve met anywhere.

After Fiji, my wife and I visited New Zealand specifically to see and photograph one of the great wildflower blooms on the planet, the lupines of the Southern Alps. If you plan to travel to see how the underhalf lives in New Zealand, I recommend going in mid-December and traveling to Twizel to see these flowers. The lupines cover acres of land, and come in every color of the rainbow, often mixed together in a total riot of color. Behind them are mountains you’ll recognize from The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

I carried both a digital camera and my trusty 4×5 and used both on the trip–shooting about 500 images on cards and several hundred sheets of large format film. To drag that much equipment around the world I sometimes need help, and my wife Marcy traveled with me as my assistant. I think this will be my last overseas trip with a 4×5 camera, so this is kind of the end of an era for me. As I approach 60, I find it just too difficult. I didn’t even have a passport until I was 40, but I have visited over 60 countries with the big camera since then. In March I’m doing a trip in India where tripods are allowed in only half the locations I intend to visit, so using a 4×5 won’t be possible at those sites. My 21 megapixel Canon should provide files with sufficient detail to satisfy me on that and succeeding trips. I’ll never stop using the 4×5 around the West or around home.

Merry Christmas to all and Great Shooting in 2008

Tom Till